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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006 06-22 Pre Meridian City Pre-Council Special Meetin~ June 22, 2006 The Meridian City Pre-Council Special Meeting was called to order at 6:35 P.M. on Thursday, June 22,2006 by Vice-President Councilman Joe Borton_ Members Present: Keith Bird, Charlie Rountree and Joe Borton. Members Absent: Mayor De Weerd and Shaun Wardle. Staff Present: Bill Nary, Anna Canning, Steve Siddoway, Kenny Bowers, Doug Strong and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. o Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree o X Joe Borton X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. Mayor. Borton: I move that we adopt the agenda as published. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda. All in favor say aye. THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Presentation for Blueprint for Good Growth by Nancy Merrill: Merrill: Thank you. Thanks for inviting me here tonight. I am the Mayor for the City of Eagle, also sit on as a committee member for the Blueprint for Good Growth and I am here to discuss a little bit about where we are in the process and what our needs are to complete this. I am sure the Mayor has kept you up in speed as well as Charlie, who sits on the committee on that. As we are rounding the corner to completing this process, it is a process that has been arduous and difficult at sometimes, but I believe it has been a good process for all of these communities to be together and to work together in a vision for transportation. I gave a sheet before you that tells you what your original requests were and what our commitments were as communities for the original Blueprint for Good Growth. We are at the second phase and at the end of the second phase we still Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 22, 2006 Page 2 of 9 have a $210,000 - well we have more than $210,000; I think we have almost $300,000 to complete this process. What we are asking and what I have been asked to do is to ask Eagle and the City of Meridian if now that we are at the end of our budget hearings and budget sessions are starting that what we are asking each community to do is to recommit for the final phase of the same amount of what you originally committed to complete the process. Meridian's original commitment was $30,000 and so what we are asking is if the Meridian City Council so desires would be so inclined and generous as to help us complete this process. I think it is really important that we don't bailout now and what we are doing as a funding committee is that we are asking each of the communities to recommit and then we will go to the rest of the business community and ask them to complete the rest of the dollars out here, but we felt like before we could go to the business communities is that we as communities need to step up to the plate and commit the dollars that we needed to complete the projects. That is the request and we are excited to have it completed. I think I was talking to Steve Siddoway the other day and actually even tOday about the need for the language of adequate public facilities. I think we all have seen our communities and that we do not have adequate to complete the infrastructure to build that we need and we don't want this to lay on the backs of the existing tax payers and so it is really important that we have a tool to do that - adequate public facilities will do that and it will put into that plan with the notion that that is what needs to happen and then we can follow that along with ordinances. Right now we can do it with development agreements, but it will be better if we can get it into ordinance form. That is kind of where we are at. It is getting that close to completion. Questions? Bird: Mr. Mayor. Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: Mayor Merrill Monday at COMPASS when they wanted to request extra time to get the Blueprint for Good Growth going they said there would be no additional funds needed. So, would you for the public record tell us why these additional funds are needed and how much has private entities put in towards this? Merrill: At COMPASS on Monday the discussion was with Communities in Motion and the Communities in Motion to extend the process that we were going to be asking for, for two months did not require any additional funds to pay for the stacks to continue on with the process and so there are no additional funds from COMPASS. We all put into COMPASS. We pay the dues for COMPASS and so that is so we can complete the COMPASS and the Communities in Motion process with that. They asked for an extension of two more months to actually get all the public input into it and to assimilate all of that so they can bring it back for a final approval in two months. So, Communities in Motion is the five county plan that Idaho Transportation has asked for. It is a little different than Blueprint Meridian City Pre.Council Meeting June 22, 2006 Page 3 of 9 for Good Growth. Blueprint for Good Growth is Ada County specific and has to do more with Ada County Highway District, but both of the growth scenarios and both of the populations and all the demographics and everything that we have been doing, they do intertwine on it. So, that is how that works. Bird: Thank you for the public record. Merrill: Sure. Borton: Mayor Merrill. Merrill: Yes, Joe. Borton: When the original $30,000 was allocated and the allocations from other cities - I take it that it was presumed that was going to be the extent of the funding necessary. Has something changed over the course of the process that has required the jurisdictions to be asked to pony up twice? Merrill: Yeah, interestingly enough if I go back to the beginning of Blueprint for Good Growth, it was first kind of conceived at a leadership conference several years ago and it was a cry basically from the business communities to do something about the traffic and we kind of got the thing running and rolling and hired a consultant to do this. It was to be done in two phases. One was to get all of the information gathering, working together on it, which was phase one and it's what we all committed to. That is what we were originally told - this is what the dollars are going to be and this is all you are ever going to have to do and the business community will kick in the rest. They have mysteriously disappeared and we don't have any commitments from any business community yet or businesses - well, very few. We do have some, but very few. So, now we are ready for the consultants to finish this last part of it, which includes the ordinances and all of the detail work on the plan and in order to do that, to finish it up we have the additional phase two of the plan. The idea was that the business community would come into that. We haven't seen that, but we are committed to go out and again start asking for more requests. We think if we can get some more commitment from our communities that we can indeed find the rest of the money from the business community. But, it has been a little disappointing; I will be real honest with you that we have not had more help from the Chambers and Boise Valley Economic Partnerships and all of those things and the Chambers that they said they were going to help us with or even individual businesses. It has been a little disappointing. We have been to Micron. Micron donates more for education than for this kind of -- for studies and things and it's not as if we haven't been out there asking. But, we just haven't been that successful in it. If you have some contacts we would be happy to have that. Rountree: Mr. Mayor. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 22, 2006 Page 4 of 9 Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Madame Mayor, you may have said it, but who is committed to date? I believe Boise has. Merrill: Boise has, Eagle has and I am not sure - oh, Garden City has and those are the only ones that I am familiar with. We are all supposed to go out and ask and then come back to our next meeting to find out. Each one of us has had a responsibility to ask for and I chose Meridian. Rountree: I think Ada County may not have voted on it, but (inaudible) make some overtures that way. Merrill: You don't think so or you do think so? Bird: I don't know. Rountree: I was thinking they had. Bird: I don't know. The one I talked to was - he was the most conservative one. Merrill: What is happening is some of the smaller cities and I consider Meridian kind of in the middle of that are kind of saying, yeah, our bUdgets aren't as big. We don't have that much money out here, but this is kind of important that we complete this process. I think the public is looking for it to be completed. I think that it shows a unity within the state and within the county that all of Treasure Valley, at least the cities in the Ada County are united in this and we believe it is important to complete it. So, that is kind of where we are at. Our City Council, we kind of wrestled with it. We certainly could have spent $20,000 in another place, but at this point we just felt like we need to finish the process, otherwise we have wasted a lot of money. Kind of an in between. Questions? Borton: Mayor is there a date that your next meeting is that you need to report back? Merrill: Yeah, I need to report back either way what your desire is. I don't think the money has to come right with it. In fact, one of the things we talked about is that we could take maybe a little out of this fiscal year and a little out of the beginning of the next fiscal year and spread it out a little bit and break it up so it wouldn't be such a big hit to us and that is probably what we will do for the City of Eagle. I think that is what Mayor Evans was also speaking about. So, that is the possibility on that. The good thing that has happened to us is I think you saw when - has Mr. McQuaid been to you guys yet? Rountree: Yes. Meridian City Pre.Council Meeting June 22,2006 Page 5 of 9 Merrill: Yeah, I think we all have been going oh my with what has been happening out here with all the numbers and that and that has shown that we have had a little more revenue come in than what we thought we were going to have, which did help us and I am sure it will probably help you also to look at that. That might be helpful. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: Madame Mayor, when do you need a timeline on commitment from us? Merrill: You know I don't have a date of our next Blueprint for Good Growth meeting. Steve do you know? Rountree: Is it the fifth or the seventh of July or something like that? Merrill: Yeah, something like that. I need to report back at the meeting. We always have a funding meeting. Bird: We will have a complete Council here next week and we can - and Shaun or Joe can get to you and give you a yes or a no. Merrill: That would be great. We would appreciate that. Bird: Would that be all right? Merrill: Absolutely. I appreciate your consideration and look forward to working with the City of Meridian. I must tell you it has been really delightful. We have enjoyed it and our Council has enjoyed it. I have enjoyed it. I think we have got a lot of good things together and we look forward to the supporting. Rountree: Thank you very much for coming in and joining us. Merrill: Thank you so much and you are welcome. Nary: Mr. Mayor. Borton: Mr. Nary. Nary: I was going to say that if it was going to be helpful to the Council we could ask the Finance Director to give a report to the Council about the suggestion Mayor Merrill made of whether or not there is funding available in this current budget or should be split between the two and that might help the Council decide if there is adequate monies available. I can certainly notify her if you would like? Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 22, 2006 Page 6 of 9 Borton: Please do. Merrill: Thank you and have a good evening. Item 4. Discussion of ACHD Joint Meeting Items for Meeting on July 10, 2006: Borton: Steve Siddoway take it away. Siddoway: Thank you. I saw that this was on your agenda for tonight so I hope it's okay I took the liberty of putting out some thoughts for your consideration. You may not want all of these, but I put down some of the things that I thought what might be good for you to be aware of and possibly discuss together with the ACHD Commission. The first one is the Waltman emergency access easement is in and built and was completed since the last joint meeting. So, this would just be acknowledgment of that to ACHD of that and thanking them for getting that constructed. It has been inspected by our Fire Department and they say it looks very good. Second and third items are some what I consider some good news that I heard recently. It might be nice to get some additional information on. The first is that some funding was approved for temporary signals at some of the worst existing four-way stops that are not scheduled for recent or not recent, but soon to come improvements in the next year or so. I have heard that Meridian, Ustick is an eligible intersection. I also heard that Ustick, Linder was eligible, which surprised me given it's due for construction in a couple of years, but it would be nice to - I thought it might be nice to get some - one, get some additional information on that program, find out maybe what intersections in Meridian they are considering and thank them for considering them because this is a new item that they are looking at to try and ease some of the congested four- way stops. Borton: Steve on that number two is that a program that is purely objective? I mean is there any sUbjective requests from us that when you talk with them (inaudible)? Siddoway: I don't know I have - Borton: -- or is it just traffic count? Inselman: To my knowledge that we were looking at ones that we thought we could work an existing right-of-way, so there is some subjectivity to it, not just purely traffic counts, but ones that we knew are a problem and that we could work within our existing right-of-way or easily acquire the necessary right-of-way to drop a signal fairly quickly. We are going to use signal equipment that would be purely temporary and would be removed completely when the intersection is Meridian City Pre.Council Meeting June 22, 2006 Page 7 of 9 reconstructed. We hope to have them up within four to five months on some of them. Borton: Thanks Gary. Sorry Steve. Siddoway: That is fine. The third item, the signal timing plan they recently allocated funding for western Ada County including the City of Meridian a signal timing plan for the system as a whole. They recently completed one of these plans for downtown Boise area and saw some significant savings in terms of delay and wait times at signals. Right now our corridors are timed sort of independently and as well as they can together, but this would be the first time the entire system would look at how the north, south streets interact with the east, west streets and we could potentially see some very significant time savings from this effort and it is underway this summer and as I understand it it's anticipated to be completed by this fall. Number four; let's talk traffic - that is an idea from Mayor De Weerd. In short, the amount of communication that she is receiving, that I am receiving has really increased from citizens with concerns about traffic and not really understanding that anything is being done about it. So, the idea is the Mayor is looking for ways to tell the story of the traffic solutions that are being worked on and trying to spread that message and get it out more than it is now. We would be looking to combine efforts with ACHD, ITD, COMPASS, Valley Regional Transit and put together some displays that we would have available at all of our public meetings. There would be - we would have a south Meridian meeting and we would have a display on traffic issues in general for everyone that comes. We would have a Ten Mile meeting and there would be information about traffic and we are looking for other ways and we are talking about doing inserts and water bills and really it is wide open in terms of possibilities, but this would be just making the Commissioners aware of that desire to tell that story of the traffic solutions that are being worked on. We have had one meeting that included Craig Contana from ACHD and he is aware of this desire and has agreed to help work on the issue. Number five, the Main, Meridian split corridor the Mayor did pull together a meeting recently with Bruce Mills, Terry Little and others with a concern and rightly so about the timing of phase one of the split corridor construction coinciding with the likely construction of Ten Mile Interchange. If we got the Ten Mile Interchange at the same time that the Meridian Road interchange area is under construction, I think we are headed for a traffic disaster. In that conversation it was discussed that ACHD has already moved up the design early. They are working on it right now. They expect the design of phase one to be done by, I believe, April of next year. They didn't commit to this timeline, but I am just throwing out a potential scenario. It does not take them - they don't need a full year to acquire right-of-way for phase one because there is not that much additional right-of-way needed, but they will need about six months or so - so towards the end of the summer of '07 beginning of fiscal '08 it is conceivable if the funding can be found that they could start construction of split corridor phase one with it being constructed by the summer of '08, which is when they hope to start the construction of Ten Mile. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 22, 2006 Page 8 of 9 SO, it is a very tight timeline because Ten Mile is scheduled for construction in '08 and programmed. But, if we have them both under construction at the same time it is going to be very, very difficult. So, it is a timing discussion and the Mayor is very concerned about it and I think she would want it on there and then "b" under that same thing I wanted to point out that ACHD did purchase the Cartwright properties for the phase two cutover at the - near the corner of Meridian Road and Bower and I thought it might be nice to thank them for that commitment in acquiring those properties early. Number six is an update on the CIP. I just saw the final draft today of minutes now going out for public comment. I thought the Council might be interested in the Capital Improvements Program and issues and things surrounding that for Meridian. Number seven the Locust Grove Project - I received word today that it - the road project is what I am talking about. Not the overpass per se, but the road project from Fairview to Franklin is being held up by the, I believe it is the lawsuit that they are in with Settler's Irrigation District. A facility runs over Maple Grove, which is the focus of that lawsuit; there is a Settler's Irrigation District facility under Locust Grove. So, I just heard today that that is being postponed until that is resolved and it might be nice to get some additional Information there. I am not sure if that is appropriate for a Commission discussion or if there is someway to get that information to you separately. But, I just heard about it today and I wanted you to be aware of it. The last two items are a heads up to you on what I expect as possible requests for this agenda from ACHD. Yesterday there was a pre-commission discussion on participatory funding of road projects. Valley wide, ACHD is looking at setting policies for participatory funding from cities on road projects and one of the commissioners requested that it be on the agenda. So, I wanted you to be aware of that. I do have some handouts related to that that I will grab real quick. There are two tables coming to you. The top one is labeled ACHD participatory funding. It came from ACHD. I had asked them for a list of participatory funding projects that had been done county wide so that we could see what other cities and others had done and that we weren't the only ones participating on projects such as the money that went towards Locust Grove Overpass. This is that list that they provided and it is sorted by the type of projects - so there are community projects, road enhancements, etc. The second list is the same list, but it is grouped by city rather than by project type. So, you can see a total by jurisdiction. So I wanted you to have that information available. The final item - I know we are coming up on seven o'clock, so I will be brief - the downtown streetscape, the MDC is working on a downtown streetscape project. I believe they have been scheduled for a presentation at ACHD on July 5th. It was suggested that maybe they shift that discussion that presentation to the joint meeting so that the City Council would be there as well. I just heard back from Clair that he is not in town that day, so he wouldn't be able to make that presentation. So, I am not sure it's a good idea to have it on that agenda, but Clair is looking into whether the consultant could be there to make that presentation - ACHD would really like it on that agenda. So, I just wanted to make you aware of that. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 22, 2006 Page 9 of 9 Borton: Council, anything that should be added? Rountree: I think we have got plenty for now. Bird: I was going to say, do you guys want to take the afternoon off? Siddoway: Do we know the date of this meeting? Is it the third of July? Bird: I hope not because I am not going to be there. Siddoway: Yeah, I am not either. Berg: Council, I sent out an email to see if we could change it to the tenth because of the holiday conflict. Pretty much everybody said they could make it. Siddoway: Okay. I think that is better for me because I am not here the third. So, thank you. Borton: Thank you, Steve. I think that is a full list of topics to cover. That takes us to the end of the Pre-Council meeting. Bird: Mr. Mayor, I move we adjourn the Pre-Council meeting of June 22, 2006. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All in favor. THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:03 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: ktVJU!4R' EERD,MAYOR 7 / Z-~t76 DATE APPR9\1~lllil~lll///I' ." ~ 'i, " "/ .:;. ",-{,,"'II' <.. ..:::- ~"... ---""~ ~!~~~ <> .:::;. v-- ~ "lo:,>.,., ~ .,.~ .~.... .:: ,/ ~,t't." ", ' ';.. .::: ~. "() \ -;. 2 \ ~ ~ 01:/ ,~. '"" ) ~ :: o.or:..l,U:..J :::: - A'J. .~ . I - L !t,,~.,~/ /-... 2 --::.. '" ",. ttr Hr<; . ,,/ ,Jrt .,::::. \:j~"/ ,.~~~~~.-/ (}(.;~,./' 'I, C.Cu'I'n <{, .,\" ////11 .' \\\'" "'I/nll H \,,\